Recently, in connection with progression of hardware techniques, the processing performance of computing machines has been rapidly enhanced. At times, processing performance which exceeds the processing performance of one computing machine is required. When such processing is executed, a parallel computing machine is generally used. A parallel computing machine is a computer or a computing system that is constructed with plural calculation nodes each having a computing machine and a network for connecting these calculation nodes. In the parallel computing machine, respective processes to be executed at the respective calculation nodes execute processing while making communications with the other processes and machines. Since the plural processes are executed in parallel, the processing time for a large-scale calculation can be greatly shortened.
The processing capacity of the parallel computing machine is greatly dependent on the design of the network. This is because if the communication between processes is inefficient, the communication time is increased and the rate of the calculation time is relatively lowered. This is more remarkable as the scale of the parallel computing machine is larger, that is, the number of the calculation nodes increases. Furthermore, various design elements are required to be considered to design an optimum network. For example, it is necessary to consider a physical element such as the connection relationship among calculation nodes and a functional element such as a communication route determining method (routing algorithm) or the like. Furthermore, it is also dependent on whether the design of a network is optimum or not.
Therefore, when a parallel computing machine is developed, in order to find out the design of an optimum network, it is necessary to repetitively design a network, estimate the performance of the designed network and then correct the design on the basis of the estimation result. At present, the performance estimation of a network on the basis of simulation is generally executed.